I have recently been minding my gaping gap and just the other day I was talking with someone about filling in the gaps, so I’ve decided to give you all a what’s update (I’m thinking that could maybe catch on sometime as a new term, sort of like all gangsta ‘n’ neato).

But before I get too far off track, let me mix it up a little with some additional nerdiness: let’s talk about facts! I know there are plenty of data scientists and data journalists who can’t seem to get enough data (like they hope when they die and go to heaven, they will be able to hook up with a lot of ones and zeroes). Me, I’m all about being discrete, but to be honest I think I would much rather get a little more abstract every now and then.

First of all, there’s the starting point. Little did you know, but you are already past it. Then there’s the end point – and don’t worry: it’s coming up real soon. In between those two points, there are an infinite number of other points. Infinite means: “so much, that even a computer can’t figure it out” — a really bad translation might be something like: “nevermind“. OK, if that isn’t abstract enough for you yet, then get this: in between any two points (like even between any of the infinite number of points between the starting point and the end point) there are also an infinite number of points. I could keep going on like this, but I hope you get the point already (haha — get it? ).

Right here I’m pretty much right in the middle of the story. Everything I write here is another point, and all of it could also be referred to as data. But of course there are also missing pieces — like I haven’t told you whether it’s daytime or nighttime, whether it’s cloudy, all sorts of stuff. There are actually humongous gaps, if you think about it. The funny thing is: it’s entirely up to you to fill them in.

Whether you like it or not, you are going to have to make some assumptions. The sad truth is that you will never have all the data. Why? Well, consider this: even if you think you have pretty much all of the data, there will still be an infinite number of data points in between the two closest points of data in your collection.

I know it’s a big pain, but you will simply have to use your imagination to fill in the gaps.

But don’t fret — we haven’t reached the end yet. I still have something more to tell. It’s actually something like a piece of advice for how you could and should go about coming up with the missing puzzle pieces. Way back at the beginning I told you I was talking with someone just the other day, remember? We were talking about something called “confirmation bias” — this is when you fill in the missing pieces with something you already think is true (and therefore it confirms the truth of what you already think — see also this video for a really neato explanation of it with a bunch of examples, too).

Now there are perhaps also an infinite number of ways that someone could fill in the missing gaps in a story. Let me give you an example. I often talk about “retard media“. When you read those two words, you probably think something like “what does he mean?” (if you follow the link, you will see that I wrote a whole article about what I mean when I use that phrase — but even that article also has an infinite number of gaps that need filling in) Let me simplify this. Let’s pretend there are basically only two interpretations: 1. I am a bad person; or 2. there is something else “out there” that is bad (I am using “bad” here because it seems that a lot of people feel that way about the word “retard”). To flesh out the details a little more, this “bad” might have something to do with attitude — like a condescending attitude (so in other words, you might attribute “condescending attitude” to me or to something else). Now I have written more and more details here, but in the end it is still up to you to fill in the missing pieces, to accommodate the new information with your already existing beliefs and so on.

As you do this, your biases will influence you. Many people think that the more you are aware of your biases, the better will the accommodation process reflect the actual “facts“.

That’s it for now (we’re getting very near the end). Have a pleasant day!

I have written about the widespread pandemic of illiteracy for many years, and I find it odd that there has continued to be an attitude of toleration to the phenomenon – even among people who I consider to be quite literate.

This has bugged me incessantly, and I have puzzled time and again, but have never been able to figure out why there continues to be such widespread resistance to the promotion of literacy.

The relatively obvious situation that many organizations have been able to reap great profits from duping illiterate suckers and thereby emptying their pockets can hardly be „breaking news“ any more. Modern propaganda methods were perhaps first developed at the turn of the Twentieth Century, they were exploited on a grand scale in the Third Reich – but it was truly the Americans who „perfected“ it and turned into a science.

For many decades, the „American Way of Life“ has been associated with progress, wealth and economic development. When the shady details of the mortgage-backed securities crisis started becoming more and more obvious, when people started protesting that they had been duped into debt, then this movement was silenced in short shrift. The message was loud and clear: “Shut up, slaves!”

You might think that might have been a wake-up call. Nada.

Now, or rather recently, there has been another tell-tale sign screaming out of the sinful modern media: The “Fake News” crisis. Will this, too, be swept under the carpet? I think this hypothesis might not be as far-fetched as it might sound to some.

The puzzling evidence won’t go away, though, and it continues to nag me. The other day an idea occurred to me that might help explain some of it, but so far it’s still just a wild guess – and I think I need to think it through some more before I might feel OK with actually putting the idea “out there”. I don’t need to explain all of it, but I do think I want to feel as though it’s no just a random thought-bubble.

Many people are upset. They are upset with something the Donald did. Apparently, they feel somewhat dependent on stuff Donald does.

Donald does stupid stuff – and so do you. We all do stupid stuff. Whether or not Donald realizes he does stupid stuff is not about you or me – it is simply about Donald.

You don’t depend on Donald. You may feel as though you depend on Donald, but you are still free to do your own thing. You can always do the right thing even if Donald does something wrong.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I couldn’t care less what someone screams into a megaphone.

This isn’t about me. Or someone. Life is about all of us.

Whether we are or aren’t living a life of dependency depends on what you think. If you think you can live without breathing air, feel free to go right ahead and live that way. I don’t think that way, so perhaps I will choose not to rely on you.

My friend Jean Russell shared a really fascinating meme the other day on facebook. The main gist of the idea was that “you are what you think”… such that rather than “I am what you think I am”, in fact “you are what you think I am”.

This is a very powerful message — and yet there seems to be another message hidden behind the surface: Many things are not what you think they are. Some people also use the phrase “the map is not the territory” to draw attention to this phenomenon.

Yet many people make this exact mistake, often many times over — I guess sort of non-stop. Let me give you an example.

When I warn people about the dangers of relying too heavily on Google (or even about the dangers of using it at all — see also “Definition: How to Define “Retard Media”“), they often respond with “what do you have against the Internet?” or maybe “well, I don’t rely exclusively on the Internet”. These people apparently don’t realize that Google is not the Internet (neither is Facebook, nor Wikipedia or any other individual website).

In a similar vein, there is a podcast called “No Agenda” that purports to be all about media deconstruction. I enjoy listening to this podcast very much, but as far as I know neither of the creators of the show have ever given a functional operational definition of what they consider to be media (versus “not media”). As it is, they primarily deconstruct television programming (and also TV ads). But they sometimes also analyze websites (such as facebook.com and/or google.com) — but not all websites… so which websites? Their limited view of media distorts the usefulness of their information — to put it simply: because they deconstruct some things, but not everything.

Granted: deconstructing everything would be a quite formidable task… and it may even be impossible. But since they do not explicitly delineate what it is they want to deconstruct, the result is that the selection of what they do actually deconstruct may very well be quite biased. That is sad, because otherwise I would say that their approach is refreshing and insightful.